Colorado Trip 2013: Days Three and Four

After a hiatus to discuss more recent beer consumption, this post is a continuation of the chronicle of Sara's and my trip to visit my sister and her family in Colorado. My first post on this subject covered the first two days of our stay. In this post, I will cover the next two days.

My sister's in-laws have a cabin in the Rocky Mountains near the tiny town of Alma, Colorado. On the third day of our visit, we drove up to the mountains. We stopped on the way for lunch at an restaurant in Fairplay, Colorado. I enjoyed a nice draft beer with my meal. Not unexpectedly, my cellphone got spotty coverage while I was in the Rockies. My texts to Twitter were randomly sent and posted whenever there was some decent coverage. I believe the beer I had at that restaurant was First Cast IPA from Elevation Beer Company which is located in Poncha Springs, Colorado. Honestly, I do not remember it being anything particularly special.

When we got to the cabin, I found that there was leftover beer in the refrigerator. I discovered a bottle of Caramel Apple Spiced Ale from Blue Moon which was probably from one of their Brewmaster's Seasonal Sample Packs for fall. I later purchased that sampler myself back in North Carolina, and I am drinking a bottle as I type this. The taste is sweet like caramel and has autumnal spices including, I would say, nutmeg.

On day four, we all got up early, climbed into my sister's Subaru Outback, and ventured into the Pike National Forest. Due to recent rain, some of the mountain roads were impassible for the Outback, but we eventually found our way to Kite Lake. The views were absolutely beautiful, but after awhile, we were ready from some lunch (and perhaps some beer).

We traveled down the mountain to Buena Vista, Colorado. We decided to have some lunch at Eddyline Restaurant & Brewery. Of course, I also decided to have their beer sample. It was not my first beer sampler of the trip, and it would not be the last. There is a photo of me on Facebook with a wooden paddle holding eight tasting glass. However, I only have the six brews shown in the accompanying photo plus one seasonal offering, their Innerglow Red Chile Porter. I do not know what the eighth glass would have been.